Application of CCME-WQI and Trend Analysis for Water Quality Assessment of the largest Dam in Algeria

The main goal of this paper is to study the water quality of the Beni Haroun (BH) Dam for different purposes using the Canadian Council Ministers Environment (CMME) index, which included 22 physicochemical parameters observed during 11 years. A principal component analysis (PCA) was performed to reduce the number of dimensions. To identify the sources of possible pollution, data from two other stations, Ain Smara (ST1) and Menia (ST2), situated upstream of the dam are also used. The results show that the calculated values of CCME indices at BH dam for drinking, irrigation, industry, and aquatic life purposes were 17, 40, 42, and 32, respectively, during the period from 2000 to 2010. These indices indicate a poor water quality according to CCME categorization scheme. In this context, Richards Diagram identified two kinds of irrigation water quality in the studied sites, including C3S1 (poor quality) and C4S1 (bad quality). Time series plots and Mann–Kendall test showed a positive trend in the water quality of the BH Dam. This study demonstrates the advantage of CCME index for interpreting spatial and temporal variations in surface water quality.